- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Outside cover, one of two [see 2009.150.11 for the other] for frame for model tent [See 2009.150 .1-.31 for all parts of tent]. [FC 10/11/2009]
- Long description
- Outside cover, one of two [see 2009.150.11 for the other] for frame for model tent. The outside wall cover consists of a length of white ?linen textile which has been lined with three pieces of cream coloured canvas textile. The canvas textile is in three pieces, one 335 mm in length, the second piece 190 mm in length and the third piece 710 mm in length. They have been sewn together by hand with white cotton yarn in running stitch. The top of the white ?linen textile is wider then the canvas textile and has been folded over at the top and stitched to the edge of the canvas textile with white cotton yarn. Through the hole created between the ?linen material and the canvas material a length of rope has been threaded and knotted at either end. The bottom edge of the ?linen and canvas textile have been left raw and are frayed. Half way along the front of the outside cover [the white ?linen side] two lengths of blue felt textile have been stitched with purple cotton yarn. One of the lengths of blue felt is 7 mm wide and the other is 30 mm wide. This has been repeated at both ends of the outside cover. The broader felt strip is folded over the edges of the ends of the white ?linen textile. The textile is stained throughout. [See 2009.150 .1-.31 for all parts of tent]. [FC 10/11/2009]
- Geographical reference
- Date / Period
- Date made: By 1948
- Date collected
- 1948
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 28/10/2009
- Materials and processes
- Material Canvas Textile, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Yarn Plant, Material Linen Flax Bast Fibre Textile Plant, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Textile Plant, Material Rope, Material Felt Wool Textile Animal, Process Stitched, Process Tied, Process Varnished, Process Knotted, Process Woven
- Dimensions
- Width: max 290 mm, Length: max 1235 mm
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 2009.150.11
- Research and responses
Clare Harris [Reader in visual Anthropology, Pitt Rivers Musem]: Although the object has been described by the donor as a yurt, technically speaking this is not correct as this is a Turkic term used in Central Asia and then exported to the West (hence commonly used). (See the Wikipedia entry for Yurt for more information on this.) Mongolians call the tent a gyer or ger and Tibetans call a white tent a gur. In fact there are many different terms for these portable dwellings in Tibetan - depending on their shape and colour. I suspect that the same will be true for Mongolia. The problem with the model we have been donated is that it was given to Arthur Hopkinson by a Mongolian-Tibetan trader and so could be either Mongolian or Tibetan. I don't know enough about the designs of these tents to be able to say which it is without doing some research. The other issue is that (if I remember correctly) it was presented to Hopkinson in India (probably Darjeeling or Kalimpong) and might have been made there. I am pretty sure that there was a Tibetan handicraft establishment in Kalimpong in the 1930s... The fabric used to make the internal fittings (eg bed covers) suggested to me that it might have been made in India. Monisha Ahmed has a lengthy discussion about the type of tents used by nomads in Ladakh and Western Tibet in her book "Living Fabric" (should be in the Balfour library). However, our model is not of this variety. [FC 12/11/2009]
2009.150.11
Outside cover, one of two [see 2009.150.11 for the other] for frame for model tent [See 2009.150 .1-.31 for all parts of tent]. [FC 10/11/2009]
2009.150.11
Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford
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